First Day of School & Tea Party

On August 22, K15 had her first day at the Career Center.  She's taking their cosmetology program and will graduate in two years with her cosmetology license and an Ohio high school diploma.  Here are her first day of school pictures and some highlights of our annual first day of school tea party.  It's hard to believe we've been holding this event for eleven years!

Weekly Recap 10/24-10/28/11

We've had another wonderful week.  I found myself wondering today why this year felt so much easier than our previous homeschooling years.  It dawned on me that last year we were in the midst of showing our house and looking for a new house.  My dh started his new job on November 1 last year.  What a year it's been!

Our history is going so well.  We completed two chapters this week.  We learned about the events in China, Japan, and India during the 17th century.  All of the children really seem to be enjoying the passages from Story of the World as well as the library books that I have been checking out from our local library.  S9 spent time this week reading about Japanese artists and shipwrecked boys while H12 was reading about royalty from Sweden and India.  M7 and I read several story book versions of the Grimm fairy tales.  We even caught the others listening in a few times.  We also spent some time this week watching and listening to the fairy tales by the Grimm brothers.  We had some lively compare/contrast conversations about their favorite tales.  Everyone voted that Tangled was much more enjoyable than the original telling of Rapunzel.

If we keep making progress at this rate we will be able to take the entire week of Thanksgiving off of school.  With our extra company coming during that week, it will be good to have some days without the responsibility of school.

Bearing Witness to Blessing Part 5 - Back to School Episode

Blond hair, silky smooth and pin straight.  Styled to make any cheerleader on the planet feel a pang of envy, even if they too are sporting their own perfect hair.  Lip gloss, eye liner and mascara just so.  The exact ratio of sparkle and glow to be a tiny bit more natural than nature.  Jeans, shoes, shirt and pullover chosen with care.  The entire effect one of casual perfection, no need to try because what you see is the best there is.  The illusion of effortlessness covering a few dozen butterflies fluttering in the flat tummy covered by the skinny jeans and hoodie pullover.  My baby is on her way to a new school as a full time student.

The guidance counselor began the conversation by talking of "salvaging" the work K14 did during the first semester.  A homeschooling mother, who has spent energy and time challenging and providing an excellent education for her daughter, does not appreciate words like "salvaging".  The new school schedule includes four study halls, English, algebra, earth science and world history.  Next semester she'll pick up health and physical education along with food science.  I look at the study hall loaded schedule and wonder how anyone can call a semester of Latin, medieval history, grammar and Augustine salvage. 

The first two days of school are a success.  One of fifty three students in the freshman class, K14 slid into place like the missing piece of a puzzle.  A group of girls joined her at lunch.  Day two let her know that the girls weren't plastic just a little nervous around the new girl.  The course work is easy compared to the expectations that I've set.  Four free periods make it even easier.  Much of the material we've already covered either last year or this. 

The biggest surprise is the level of trust and respect among classmates and their teachers.  Backpacks are left unattended, lockers are seldom locked.  Teachers loan students anything from cash to laptops knowing that the students are adequate to the responsibility.  It could just be a honeymoon period for her because everything is new or it could be the way things really are.  Either way, it's a new idea that adults, other than parents, have positive expectations of young adults and that living up to your potential can be a way of functioning in the world.  That's a lesson that even the most exacting homeschooling mother, which I'm not, can get excited about.

Back to School

Today was supposed to be the first day of our second semester.  Instead, we are waiting.  Our books haven't been delivered.  Nothing has been delivered.  So we wait.  Today we had hours of physical education swimming in the hotel pool.  Tomorrow we are going to a bookstore and find some books to read aloud and some activities to do.  Maybe on Wednesday we'll go look for some local field trip destinations.  It's not what we expected for this first day back to school.

Today was the first day back to school for K14.  We enrolled her full time at the local high school.  She's a freshman in a class of fifty-three students.  She won't be taking French or band.  Right now she's got four study halls.  Not exactly rigorous but she's thrilled to be back in school full time even if I'm not thrilled with the education, or lack, that she'll be experiencing.  We are compromising, public schooling with after schooling.  She gets the social time, I get to supplement with the things I think are valuable.  She gets to prove her growing maturity by completing her school work in a timely and consistent way.  I get to encourage her interests and help her slog through the work that doesn't interest her.  I'm hoping the compromise works for both us.

A Recent Addition

Since we've begun to home school high school I felt that creating a blog just for that adventure might be a good idea.  I purchased a copy of The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer a few months ago and read it along with a stack of other high school prep and advice books.  Not surprisingly, the techniques and purpose resonated with me and I came back to it and The Well Trained Mind almost exclusively when getting down to the nuts and bolts of planning.

As we've begun our journey and are attempting to put my plans into practice, I found myself re-reading The Well-Educated Mind and realized that I'd completely neglected to begin my journal as suggested in chapter three.  This blog has been very motivating to me in regard to accountability.  I imagine a blog devoted to our journey through time and literature will be equally motivating.  And so, I've created just such a blog called A Commonplace Book.  Come join me there sometime.

Harder Than Watching a Movie

I've spent the last few days perusing the newest additions to my stack of 2010-2011 home school curriculum.  I've also spent untold hours reading forums, blogs, syllabi and websites that give information about homeschooling high school.  I've got a pretty good idea what I intend to cover with K13 for her ninth grade year.  I am even a tiny bit excited about getting started.

A few minutes ago my dad, who is visiting for a week, came upstairs to see why I wasn't with the rest of the family watching movies.  I explained that I was working on getting K13's high school stuff ready.  He said, "So you have to keep track of all that you do?"  
"No," I replied, "for the state, I only have to show an attendance record for 180 days of instruction if asked.  Now we are in high school so it's not the state I'm concerned with, it's the potential colleges."
"Oh," said Dad, "That sounds harder than watching a movie." 

Significantly harder.  I've watched lots of movies but I've never written a transcript or a syllabus.  Much less three syllabi.  I know all about objectives and rubrics.  I've been searching for examples that resonate with me.  Thankfully, I've found a few.  It's good to have a starting point.  A launching pad.  It's good to know that there are many who have traveled this road before and to benefit from their experience.  It's good to have proof that this can be done.

There's a talk I give my kids that I've been repeating over and over to myself recently.  Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.  Sometimes hard things are also good things.  It's a good lesson because most people never learn it.  They get to something hard and give up.  Lots of things are hard. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do them.  It just means we'll have to put in more effort or more time, maybe both. It's a lesson I hope to teach my children and maybe, along the way, I'll learn it myself.


Homeschooling is hard. Homeschooling high school promises to be really hard. That doesn't mean it's not good. That just means we have to work harder. I have to work harder now and K13 will have to work harder when we get started next month.  It's going to be a challenge on a variety of levels.  I'm excited about some of those challenges and terrified of others.  The thing that I know to be true is that we can do this.  It may be hard but we can do this.